I am the man your mother warned you about. I am a pedlar of experiences that will end your childhood, and smother your innocence. I am a dirty, low-down pusher and there is no point pretending otherwise. Actually, scratch that. I do not need to apologise for what I am because without me and my type there would be many, many people whose lives would be a little smaller, a little less Technicolor.

For this is the truth about those of us who admit to large, and seemingly indiscriminate appetites, or "greed" as it is better known. It looks at first glance to be a selfish vice; to be about nothing other than the satisfaction of a solipsistic desire. And of course it is, some of the time. But greedy people tend, in my experience, also to be sociable people. We want, perhaps even need co-conspirators and if they cannot be found then they must be made. And so we set about inculcating them into our world, with the precision and intent of any drug dealer.

It was done to me, and so I shall do it unto others. It was my late mother who first turned me on to oysters, for example. I must have been 10 or 11, and we were having lunch at Rules, London's oldest restaurant, where she took each of her children alone, so we could for one day a year experience being an only child.

I remember the arrival of the ice-duned platter, the muslin-bound lemon, the dish of shallot vinegar and the bottle of Tabasco with its red-flashed nuclear threat. There was the doll's house-sized two-pronged fork, and the bivalves themselves, pale and ivory against the silvered shell. I watched her as she applied the condiments and swept the meat from shell to gullet in one go, and then looked to me to follow. I did the same, eager to please, and felt the rush of salt and sea and flesh and knew immediately that this was something I would do again and again and again.

I performed the same service for my own son, and recall the glee when he too necked the damned thing, and I knew that he was mine. I have fed lots of people their first oysters over the years, and turned them on to the sweet musky taste of urchins, and had my share of disappointments, too. Well at least you tried, I always say, but I never mean it. You don't do sea urchins, you say? Well then you and I will never truly be friends, I'm afraid. (Advice to women: if a prospective lover denies a taste for oysters and sea urchins, for the truly female tastes of adulthood, then give it up as a bad job. That coupling will never be satisfactory.)

I have fed people their first snails, in a sea-green coat of parsley, garlic and butter, their first slippery jewels of bone marrow on sourdough toast with the crunch of sea salt, and their first calf's brains, swimming against a tide of beurre noisette. I have done these things because I genuinely believe that the greatest of foods lie in the less explored margins, a place where, arrogantly, I think I can be a skilled guide. But I also hope I do so with a modicum of self-knowledge. Because every new oyster eater, every new fan of urchins and brains and snails and bone marrow means I am a little less peculiar. It means I am a little less alone out here.